The present invention relates to a selecting mechanism for circular knitting machines which can be conveniently set into the desired arrangement for controlling the full-stitch, half-stitch, and plain-stitch operations of the needles.
Using a selecting mechanism to selectively push up the needles or sinkers for a patterned knitting is well known. There are known six different types of selecting mechanisms for this purpose, namely, the Fancy cams, the pattern wheels, the pattern blades, the pattern drums (see British Pat. Nos. 572,908; 709,209), the pattern tapes, and the jacquard rollers. The pattern blades type is now more and more popularly accepted because it is compact and less inexpensive and it needs less installation space. Furthermore, the selecting jacks can be arranged wither individually or by pairs. When pairs of selecting jacks are installed, full-stitch, half-stitch, and plain-stitch operations are selectable. FIG. 1 shows a regular pattern blades type selecting mechanism in which the selecting jacks are movably mounted within the hollow base by two axles. When to change the positions of the selecting jacks, a special hand tool is needed. Because a circular knitting machine has as much as 36 sets of selection mechanisms, it is difficult and time-consuming to change the positions of the selecting jacks.